Self Reliance in Rural Colorado

What would you do if your school's 60-year-old coal-fired furnace quite working, and you couldn't transport students to other schools because of often snowed-out mountain passes? If you're from Silverton, Colorado you have to rely on yourselves, something rural people know a lot about.

Ellie Gober, 7, keeps her hat on during class at the Silverton School. After the school's boiler gave out in November, students donned snowpants, gloves and layers in the thick of winter, soldiering on with the help of space heaters. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post )

The Denver Post's Nancy Lofholm reports,

When the coal-fired boiler in the 98-year-old school ruptured and wheezed out its final burst of heat in November, the reaction in this San Juan Mountain town of roof-high snows and deep-freeze cold was unusual, to say the least. The 55 hardy K-12 students and their eight teachers layered up and kept at their studies — for an entire winter.

Parents and community member brought in space heaters, which were replaced after Christmas by garage-strength heaters situated in hallways and new space heaters in classrooms. The school's electrical system had a tough time keeping up and teacher sometimes had to choose between heat or using computers and audio visual devices.

In an editorial the next day, the Post reported:

The [Colorado] Department of Education and the Governor's Energy Office are helping Silverton install a new, $1 million heating system the district hopes will be more environmentally friendly than that old coal boiler.

Well done to the good people of Silverton, the Colorado Department of Education, and the Governor's Energy Office. Nice job to Nancy Lofholm, Hyoung Chang, and the editors at the Denver Post.

Contracting Services

When school finances get tight contracting services invariably comes up as a way of saving money. While contracting makes sense for short-term services, school boards should be wary of contracting for regular operations.

For example, a school board wouldn't hire a company to supply their superintendent because the superintendent's loyalty would lie with the board of the company rather than with the district. The interests of the business trump that of the school.

By all means contract with a consultant to help you develop and implement a comprehensive teacher recruitment and retention strategy. But hiring someone to run your organization who doesn't work for you could turn out to be disastrous and not be any cheaper.

Creating Positive Perceptions

A key component of recruiting effective teachers is creating positive perceptions about your district. What are teacher educators saying about your district? What are teachers and administrators from other districts saying about you? What are your own teachers saying?

Creating positive perceptions is a three step process. First, make sure you have something positive to communicate. You don't have to be perfect, but there has to be something that people can cite as evidence of your success.

Second, tell people about that success. Have a 30 second commercial about your district that you can give when someone asks, how are things in your district?

Repeat the commercial to people in your district regularly. That way they have something positive to say when they're asked, how's it going?

Rural Education SIG 2009 Program

The Rural Education Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association has put together a great program from their annual meeting. The program includes 5 paper sessions, 2 paper discussions, a symposium, and the SIG business meeting. Congratulations to the Rural SIG officers for a job well done. You can search the online program here.

Quality Program at a Reasonable Cost

A few weeks ago I blogged on the low turnout at rural conferences. There is some good news on that front from Missouri. Ray Patrick, Executive Director of the Missouri Association of Rural Education, reports that attendance at their 2009 conference was up a bit from last year and they had 10% more exhibits. Ray credits MARE's success to their ongoing goal of providing a quality program at a reasonable cost. He has some good advice for anyone organizing a conference.

Quality Program. Our program presentations suggestions go through a committee who select who will present. Our breakout sessions are divided between those presented by our Associate Members and those with educational programs backgrounds. The main thing we tell Associate members is that their program presentation can NOT be a "selling a product" program.

Reasonable Cost. Our registration rate for the conference is $115 for the first two and $100 for all additional attendees from the same district. This rate includes three meals at no additional charge. We also work with the hotel to make sure the rates are as reasonable as possbile. This year's rate was $76 per night double or single.

Value for Presenters & Exhibitors. For presenters, we do not charge the registration fee (unless they are attending the entire Conference as a participant) but there is a meal package for those wanting to have their meals on site. For the exhibitors, the registration rate is $200 per booth with the exception, if the exhibitor is a MARE Associate member whose annual dues ($275 yearly) is up to date, there is no additional charge for the booth.

Keeping these three things in mind when planning your conference will help maintain, and possibly even increase, attendance levels during a down economy.

Free Instructional Materials

With schools facing tighter budgets, a terrific resource for free instructional materials is the Federal Resources for Educational Excellence website. FREE has more than 1,500 federally supported teaching and learning resources from dozens of federal agencies like the Library of Congress and the National Science Foundation. Topics include Arts & Music, Health & Physical Education, History & Social Science, Language Arts, Math, and Science.

One that caught my eye is American Journeys - Eyewitness Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement: A Digital Library and Learning Center.

Rural Teacher Recruitment & Retention Strategy 6.0

While rural districts may not have the resources to provide higher salaries or more lucrative benefit packages, they can create more positive work environments. A first step is finding out how teachers feel about their work environment. Teachers may be reluctant to provide honest responses to district personnel, so administrators should consider having an external person gather and analyze the data. That person should also be able to help administrators process that information for planning.

Rural Teacher Recruitment & Retention Strategy 5.0

A common strategy identified by experts for addressing the rural teacher shortages is to develop local teaching talent. Often referred to as growing you own teachers, developing local talent may reduce the likelihood that teachers will leave one district for another. Teachers with close community ties are less likely to accept a position in another. Paraprofessionals can be a good source for teacher candidates, but administrators have to be careful about creating unrealistic expectations about employment opportunities.

Rural Teacher Recruitment & Retention Strategy 4.0

Since the number one reason rural teachers change schools it to work closer to their home, helping teachers find a place to live close to their work improves the changes of retaining them. School boards can create savings programs that encourages teachers to save money for a down payment on a house. Boards might also create a matching fund to motivate teachers to buy a home in the district.

Rural Teacher Recruitment & Retention Strategy 3.0

Helping teachers integrate into the school and community increases satisfaction and effectiveness. It can be particularly important for teachers who have not lived in a rural area since they may not have experienced living in a small community. Mentor selection and training is key to success. A teacher who says, “I hate this district, I hate this community,” is not going to be a good mentor. Districts that neglect mentor training miss an opportunity to increase the skills and commitment of both new and experienced teachers.

Rural Teacher Recruitment & Retention Strategy 2.0

The earlier a district can hire, the better opportunity to find a good fit for a teaching position. To do so districts have to be proactive in identifying potential retirements and resignations. Financial inducements for early notification of an intent to leave encourages teachers to inform administrators of their plans earlier rather than later. Districts may have policies that unintentionally discourage early notification by teachers. For example, a teacher who faces a gap in their health insurance if they resign early may wait until the last minute to do so.

Rural Teacher Recruitment & Retention Strategy 1.0

The most important thing a district can do to reduce teacher turnover is to have a coherent teacher recruitment, hiring, and support system that aligns with district goals and priorities. Putting the time into attracting applicants, evaluating their fit with school and community needs, and providing ongoing support is far superior to a piece meal approach that may neglect critical aspects of the process. Doing an audit of the system will identify gaps in the process.

Striving for Excellence/Maintaining Balance

It's state basketball tournament time in Colorado so what's on the front page of the Denver Post sports page? The music program at Kit Carson High School (and the boys basketball team). With an enrollment of 113 students in grades pre-k through 12, Kit Carson placed 3 of its starters from the 21-1 basketball team on the all-state band and a fourth player player as an alternate. Center Joe Jolly earned first chair euphonium for the second consecutive year in the 112-member symphonic band, which is like winning the 100-meter dash two straight years against all the runners across the state, according to Ken Singleton coordinator of all-state bands.

My old college friend Jim Trahern is the basketball coach and athletic director:

"Perhaps it's because we're a smaller community, but we like the idea of our kids being well-rounded and taking part in a lot of different activities."

If having high expectations are important to student success, then Kit Carson can teach big and small districts a thing or two.

"The people here only expect the best from us," [Charles] Johnson said. "They probably wouldn't be too thrilled with being runners-up."

Bad Economy Affects Rural School Conferences

The economic downturn being felt across the country is having an effect on rural schools and the organizations that support them. A case in point is that the Center for Rural Education and Small Schools at Kansas State University cancelled one day of their 28th Annual Rural and Small Schools Conference due to low registration. I've been to their conference several times and I know that attendance wasn't down because of the quality of the program. Bob Newhouse and Barbara Havlicek always put together a terrific event. It surely must be due to economic pressures being felt by school administrators.

One wonders how the economy will affect the National Rural Education Association Convention in October.

Rural Education Equality and Improvement Act of 2009

The title of House Resolution 825 introduced by Representative Jim Marshall (R-GA) caught my eye. What will the Rural Education Equality and Improvement Act of 2009 do for rural students?

If the Secretary of Education takes any action (whether by regulation, guidance, or otherwise) to authorize increased flexibility for any category of rural local educational agencies, the Secretary shall extend the same level of increased flexibility to all rural local educational agencies.

That means Secretary Arne Duncan can't authorize flexibility in implementing statutes for only certain types of rural districts, instead he has to give it to all rural districts as defined in the Rural Education Achievement Program. I guess that means that if Secretary Duncan wanted to give some flexibility to rural districts with fewer than 600 students to address a problem related to the interaction of small size and geographic isolation (e.g., highly qualified teachers), he'd also have to give it to "rural" districts with 5,000 students.

The Key Idea

Columnist Kathleen Parker visits a rural district in South Carolina. I'm not sure what to think of the concluding paragraph.

What happens in rural South Carolina may not be of paramount importance to people elsewhere, who are facing their own economic challenges. But what's true here is true in rural communities across America, and our choices are pretty simple. As Ferillo put it: "We either educate the child or we jail the adult."

While it may be true that we either educate the child or jail the adult, I'm confident that's not the key idea the majority of rural educators want to emphasize.

Reducing Teacher Turnover Costs in Rural Districts

School districts can realize cost savings by minimizing the amount of teacher turnover they have each year. A study from the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future estimates the cost of replacing a teacher to range from $4,300 per year in a small rural district in New Mexico to almost $18,000 in Chicago.

Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics, Hobart Harmon and I identify seven strategies rural districts can use to reduce teacher turnover:

1. Implement an aligned teacher recruitment, hiring, and support system.
   
2. Hire early.
   
3. Implement a mentoring program for new teachers.
   
4. Help teachers find a place to live in the district.
   
5. Develop local teaching talent.
   
6. Create positive workplace conditions.
   
7. Find out why teachers leave.

Email me if you'd like a copy of the Reducing Teacher Turnover Costs in Rural Districts policy brief.

Obama Administration Discontinues Rural Education Task Force & Center for Rural Education

A U.S. Department of Education spokesman confirms that the Obama administration has discontinued the department's Rural Education Task Force, and the Center for Rural Education. What are they going to do for the unique needs of rural schools? Something tells me not much. Not that the Bush administration did much of anything. Where's the outrage?

What Happened to the Secretary's Rural Education Task Force?

I just sent a message to the U.S. Department of Education asking them for an update on the Secretary's Rural Education Task Force. From what I can tell the Task Force held 4 or 5 meetings, the last of which was December 14, 2006.

Since the purpose of a task force is to do a task, the question becomes what task did they accomplish. My sense is it just sort of drifted away without having completed a specific task, or at least a meaningful one. Will the Obama administration reconstitute the task force and assign it important work? I'm not hopeful.

NREA's New Website

The National Rural Education Association has a nice new design for it's website.